Drake University Law School earned an A ranking for child and family law in preLaw magazine, placing Drake among the top 28 law schools in the nation for this field. This is the sixth year in a row that Drake Law received recognition for excellence in child and family law.

The publication based the rankings on the law schools’ offerings in family law, including clinical programs, certificates, externships, and courses. The results are reported in preLaw’s Back to School 2023 issue.

For two decades, the Joan & Lyle Middleton Center for Children’s Rights has stood as the foundation of Drake University’s esteemed children’s rights program. It has consistently taken the lead at local, statewide, and national levels in enhancing child welfare and juvenile justice systems through its commitment to training, advocacy, and litigation. Within the Middleton Center for Children’s Rights, the Children’s Rights Clinic plays a pivotal role, equipping law students with the skills and knowledge necessary for fulfilling and prosperous careers in child advocacy.

The issue highlighted Drake Law School’s newest student organization, the Youth Law Society. This organization was formed to serve and engage with children in the community. The Youth Law Society helps high school students complete forms for federal student aid. Members also volunteer to read with local elementary school students. Plans for the fall include professional networking events and a guest speaker who will talk about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision involving the Indian Child Welfare Act.

“Drake Law is great place for students interested in juvenile or family law practice to get the mentorship and practical training they need to hit the ground running upon graduation,” Professor Nickole Miller said. “I am proud of the work student attorneys in the Children’s Rights Clinic are doing to protect and expand the rights of children and youth through direct legal representation in court and administrative proceedings, systemic advocacy work, and community education projects.”

Read the full issue online (for the Youth Law Society highlight, visit pages 10/11 and for family law rankings, see page 44).

Taylor Johnson, Law School

Drake University Law School earned an A+ ranking for human rights law in preLaw magazine, placing Drake among the top ten law schools in the nation for this field.

The publication based the rankings on law schools’ offerings in human rights law, including clinical programs, certificates, externships, partnerships, and courses. The results are reported in preLaw’s Back to School 2023 issue.

The issue highlights the collaboration between Drake Law School and attorneys from Dentons Davis Brown to organize an LGBTQ+ legal clinic. The clinic offered guidance to members of the LGBTQ+ community, addressing concerns such as legal name changes, sex designation changes, and health care provisions such as powers of attorney.

Breanna Young, attorney at Dentons Davis Brown and former adjunct professor at Drake Law School said, “We saw a real need to step up and help empower and protect people by helping them get their legal documents in place.”

Read the full issue online. (page 39)

Taylor Johnson, Law School

In June 2023, the Drake Board of Trustees approved the pursuit of an Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Once approved by the Iowa Board of Nursing (IBON) and the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the first cohort will begin in Fall 2024. The College will also seek national accreditation.

Students enrolled in the 3 + 1 ABSN program will have the opportunity to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, along with a Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences. The accelerated BSN degree will require three semesters of full-time coursework throughout the fall, spring, and summer following the completion of prerequisites.

The program will partner with Broadlawns Medical Center which will provide preceptorships, clinical education, and additional facilities and laboratory spaces. The partnership will allow the program to offer students a range of experiences among diverse patient populations.

“The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences believes that investing in the education and preparation of nurses is important for the overall well-being of our communities,” said CPHS dean and professor Renae Chesnut. “By offering an intensive curriculum that compresses the requirements into a condensed timeframe, we are accelerating the pathway for individuals who are passionate about making a difference in people’s lives and helping bridge the gap between healthcare needs and the available nursing workforce.”

Applications to the program will become available following the IBON and HLC approvals.

Congratulations to Drake Law Professor Melissa Weresh, the 2023 recipient of the Association of Legal Writing Directors’ (ALWD) Linda Berger Award for Excellence in Legal Writing Scholarship. The Berger Award is ALWD’s highest award recognizing scholarship in the field of legal writing. It specifically recognizes the recipient’s lifetime dedication to and advancement of legal writing scholarship.

Weresh is the Dwight D. Opperman Distinguished Professor of Law and the Herb and Karen Baum Chair of Ethics in the Professions at Drake University. Her scholarship examines the art, science, and ethics of persuasion and advocates for the modernization of law school teaching. Mel has championed the professionalization of the legal writing discipline, including improving status for legal writing faculty. She has previously served as president of the Legal Writing Institute, chair of the AALS Teaching Methods Section, member of the LexisNexis Law School Publishing Advisory Board, and member of the Editorial Boards of both Legal Communication & Rhetoric: JALWD and The Journal of Legal Education. In 2017, she was awarded the Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing.

— Theresa Howard, Law School

Drake University Law School is pleased to announce the arrival of two outstanding new faculty members, Christoph Henkel and Alexa Perez. Professor of Law Christoph Henkel brings a distinct international and comparative perspective to Drake’s business law faculty. He will teach Business Organizations, Contract Drafting, and other upper-level business law courses. Assistant Professor of Law Alexa Perez brings noteworthy expertise in both civil and criminal law gained from her experience as a federal prosecutor and commercial litigation associate. Perez will teach Civil Procedure and Evidence.

“Our newly appointed faculty members possess remarkable expertise within their specific fields and boast impressive qualifications,” said Jerry Anderson, dean of the law school. “Their innovative viewpoints and enthusiasm will align perfectly with our current faculty, fostering the achievements of our students.”

Christoph Henkel joins Drake from Mississippi College School of Law where he taught a variety of business law courses and was co-director of the International and Comparative Law Center. Henkel also served as a visiting professor on the law faculties at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. Henkel holds an SJD and LLM degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School. He earned a JD equivalent at the Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen, Germany, and has practiced law in Europe and the United States. His research encompasses banking law, Fintech, entrepreneurial law, and wide range of corporate subjects.

Alexa Perez received her JD from the University of Chicago Law School, and a BA in English summa cum laude from the University of Florida. She served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa, where she prosecuted racketeering, money-laundering, drug, and gun related offenses. Prior to that, she was a managing associate at Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago where she represented Fortune 500 companies in a wide range of legal proceedings including, securities fraud class actions, general commercial disputes, and government investigations and enforcement actions. She also clerked for the Honorable Edmond Chang on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

— Taylor Johnson, Law School

Drake Professor of Sociology Nancy Berns, author of Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us, shared her expertise around grief and the pressure to “move on” and find “closure” in a recent Yahoo Life article.

In the article, titled, “How those who grieve feel pressured to ‘move on’ — and why that makes the loss hurt even more,” Professor Berns said,

“Closure grew in popularity particularly in the ’90s, but has roots in the ’60s and ’70s, with the rise of pop psychology and victim survivor movements.” The “made-up concept” has been exploited by groups including politicians pushing the death penalty and those in the funeral industry, she said.

“It carries a lot of baggage and can create more harm than help for those who are grieving. We grieve because we love. Even as it changes over time and people learn how to carry it, it’s still going to be part of our lives in many ways.”

But when people receive messages about closure, she adds, “What it sounds like is, ‘You don’t want to listen to my pain,’ and it shuts them down and isolates them further.”

Read the full article.

The Anderson Gallery was awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts grant of $20,000 for the upcoming exhibition of artists Duane Slick and Martin Smick.

Duane Slick is an artist of Native American descent, the Meskwaki Nation of Iowa and the Ho-Chunk Nation of Nebraska. His acrylic paintings blend the subjects of oral and visual Native American traditions with a focus on trickster strategies and modernist/post-modernist painting histories.

Martin Smick is an artist who has been living and working in Rhode Island since 2007 and has taught in the Painting Department at Rhode Island School of Design since 2013. Both artists have exhibited nationally and have collaborated on two previous exhibitions.

As collaborators, Slick and Smick are conscious of their respective cultural identities and have been able to create exhibitions that engage in issues surrounding Native culture. The grant will fund their site-specific installation at the Anderson Gallery that will be open to the public from Oct. 26–Dec. 10, 2023.

Lilah Anderson, Anderson Gallery Exhibitions and Community Engagement Manager 

Three psychology students, Alex Chavez, Brittany Scott, and Bridgette Browning received a Psi Chi Award for their presentation, “The PSASE Project: Impact of a Vocational Intervention on Application Self-Efficacy,” at the 95th annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association Association in Chicago.  These students worked under the mentorship of Meaghan Rowe-Johnson, assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.

Chris Klietherme, Associate Professor of Psychology

The Office of Community Engaged Learning is proud to announce four recipients of the 2023 President’s and Engaged Campus Awards from the Iowa & Minnesota Campus Compact (IAMNCC) in recognition of their outstanding commitment to community engagement and civic responsibility. This year, 86 awardees were selected from 55 colleges and universities across the two-state network.

The following Drake recipients were recognized at an in-person ceremony on April 13, 2023, at St. Catherine University in Saint Paul, MN.

• Matthew Williams, a senior majoring in accounting, was recognized with the Presidents’ Student Leadership Award. Williams has been an advocate for people with disabilities and involved with Easter Seals his entire life. On campus he has built a community of students, faculty and staff dedicated to developing the resources needed to create a more inclusive campus environment.
• Alejandro Hernandez, Dean of the Zimpleman College of Business was recognized with the Presidents’ Civic Engagement Leadership Award. Dean Hernandez has led a rebrand of the college focused on ‘Business as a Force for Good’, launched the Dean’s Honor Roll for Social Impact, and created a new Social Impact Research and Outreach Award to recognize faculty and staff contributions to improving society through their research and service.
• Homeward, Polk County’s homelessness planning organization was recognized with the Presidents’ Community Partner Award. Following up on a one-time community-engaged learning course partnership, Homeward worked with Drake University to commission a first of its kind community engaged research project to provide a platform for 157 people experiencing homelessness to tell their stories and the findings are being used to inform local public policy.
• Elizabeth Talbert, assistant professor of Sociology was recognized with the Engaged Campus Award for Community Collaboration. Dr. Talbert has spent the last two years building relationships with affordable housing agencies, the staff that run them, and the people who are served (or not) by them. What began with a sociology methods service-learning project morphed into a collaboration involving Talbert, Dr. Matthew Record, assistant professor of Public Policy and American Politics, 8 students, and the members of the Polk County Homeless Coordinating Council to examine why individuals face barriers to shelter and permanent housing in the Des Moines community.
• Sprout Learning Garden and Food Forest received Honorable Mention for the Engaged Campus Award for Emerging Innovation. Sprout, located at 1300 30^th Street, is home to more than 60 food-producing trees and shrubs, hundreds of edible perennial plants, pollinator-attracting flowers and natives, three permaculture swales, a half-acre learning garden, gathering spaces, and a walking trail.

Additionally, Marguerite Stoffel, a third-year business student, was selected for the 2023 National Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellowship!  One of her key projects on campus has been supporting the administration of the Dean’s Honor Roll for Social Impact and serving as an ambassador to business college students on how to meaningfully engage with the community.

Iowa & Minnesota Campus Compact (IAMNCC) is a network of 55 colleges and universities committed to strengthening the capacity for civic engagement and campus-community partnership in the service of

Contact: Renee Sedlacek Lee, Director of Community Engaged Learning, 515-271-2454, or renee.sedlacek@drake.edu.

Renee Sedlacek Lee, Community Engaged Learning